To penetrate EU market: RP coco-based products need quality upgrading

For the country’s coconut-based products to penetrate the European market, the industry is first required to upgrade its quality and practices to pass international standards and be marketable in the global market.

And to help the Philippine government achieve this goal, the European Union spearheaded a program called the Trade Related Technical Assistance (TRTA) and donated about 3.5 million Euro and half a million Euro in kind to the Philippine government. The program kicked off January of last year and will end this December.

According to Romeo A. Reyes, the team leader of Entidad Colaboracion De Administracion (ECA), TRTA’s implementing arm that with emphasis on food safety the European Union strives to help countries like the Philippines to further improve the quality of our food items to harmonize local resellers with European legislation and to meet international food standards.

He added that the program is also aimed at elevating public awareness on food safety not only for foreign buyers but also for the domestic market as well.

Reyes also revealed that though some of our coconut-based products have already slowly penetrated the European market, our copra produce actually has not yet been able to do so because of the product’s inability to meet safety requirements and quality standards.

According to Reyes our copra’s residue produces more moisture than that of the required moisture standard and the reason for this is because our coconut farmers use direct heat from firewood that makes it dirty and burnt.

“We need to produce clean copra to be able to partake in the bigger market abroad. Canada, East Asia, Japan, Korea takes emphasis on food safety so it is about time that our industry should adopt the appropriate practices and utilize new technologies to become globally competitive,” said Reyes.

Through the TRTA program 14 “kukumdryers” and moisture meters have been given to the Philippine government and these were distributed to cooperatives which coconut farmers could use for cleaning their copra produce and about 400 farmers were trained for its proper use.

However, even with EU’s assistance and with the coming in of these new facilities, farmers still do not practice the production of clean copra. The main problem that TRTA sees is the lack of incentive for farmers to produce clean copra and because of copra shortage, some oil millers still buy and use dirty copra which is distributed all over the country. 

Also the exchange rate for buying and selling either clean or dirty copra is still the same which does not motivate the farmers in producing clean ones.

Reyes then suggested that to address this matter TRTA together with implementing government sectors looked into revoking copra buyer’s registration if they still buy dirty copra produced by coconut farmers through surveillance. He added that this particular move will motivate coconut farmers into producing clean copra and in turn benefit from the industry and its players as they may soon be able to penetrate the European market if they strive for quality standard and practices then make use of the advanced facilities that TRTA have provided for them.

Coconut is among the top five basic commodities in the country and it produces an average of about $750 million within a cycle of five years. In good years, its exports grow to about $800 million. The industry contributes 1. 5% for the gross domestic product of the entire country.